Literally putting your best foot forward

Consider: ‘True or false.’ You rarely hear anyone pose a false-or-true question, even though there should be a 50-50 chance of either.

You might get the notion from the popular media that we Americans have suddenly morphed into a mass of pessimistic isolationists who always see our glasses as half-empty. My own take is that, on the contrary, most of us are what Oscar Hammerstein might call “cockeyed optimists.” All one need do to test that theory is to think about some of our most common phrases. Just about all of them emphasize the positive over the negative.

Consider: “True or false.” You rarely hear anyone pose a false-or-true question, even though there should be a 50-50 chance of either.

“Yes or no answer.” A first cousin of “true or false.” A “no or yes” would be just as acceptable, but we always seem to accentuate the positive, just the way Johnny Mercer urged us to do.

“Upside down.” How often do you hear about anything being downside up? Well, possibly in Australia.

“Outside in.” What would that be — a sweatshirt emblazoned with an obscene message on the front?

“Ups and downs.” Yes, we all have ’em, but who ever describes them as their downs and ups?

“Rights and wrongs.” Wrongs and rights just doesn’t sound right, am I wrong?

“More or less.” It’s a more-or-less given that more trumps less in everything, even language.

“Hits or misses.” In most of life, especially baseball, it’s the hit that gets the attention, not the miss, unless you’re a pitcher, and he’s outnumbered 8-1.

“Ins and outs.” The only creatures who think of it as the other way around are house cats.

“For richer or poorer.” True, there are more of the latter, but they have an unfortunate history of coming in second.

“For better or worse.” Better always gets the better of worse, in idiomatic terms at least.

“Day and night.” The only guy who saw things the other way was another songwriter — Cole Porter.

“Win or lose.” Losers probably think of it as “lose and win.” But you never hear any of them yelling, “We’re No. 2!”

“Pro and con.” I suppose you could call it “con and pro” if some scam artist got good enough to make a career out of it.

“There’s good news and bad news.” Your best shot is probably no news, but that’s not an option in this case.

“Friend or foe?” Yeah, like foes are going to tell you they are.

“Sweet and sour sauce.” Yes, but if I had to choose, I’d go for the former more often than the latter.

“Life and death matter.” Hey, that’s serious business, but like Patrick Henry, we don’t seem to have much of a problem making a choice.

See, we’re not all grumps. It’s really just a matter of “mind over matter.”